


War Wounds

by Ormspryde



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Self-Harm, can't get rid of the mark that way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-07-26 09:59:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7569793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ormspryde/pseuds/Ormspryde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Again, and again, and, futilely, again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	War Wounds

Severus had done it again, and Albus could taste his own failure like bile in his throat.

  
He stared down at the pale, shivering man, who lay in a hospital bed; asleep, but forcibly, fitfully so.  His left arm was immobilized by means of a spell, the inner forearm exposed to the air and the healers' occasional ministrations.

  
The bones were visible, framed by the raw meat that was once the man's arm.  Once again, Severus had harmed himself to the point of hospitalization - and all for nothing.  Even when torn to shreds, his arm still bore the Dark Mark, all the more terrible for slithering through bloody tendons and exposed bones and meat.  Somehow, the sight affected him more deeply than it had any right to.

  
And yet Albus made himself look.

  
He was responsible for this.  He himself, responsible for this man's suffering, for keeping him unwilling in a world that held nothing but horror and pain.  And for what?  
Yes, he needed Severus to spy.  He needed Severus, and the _war_ needed Severus...

  
But the thought that the man might have died alone, wallowing in horror and terror and pain, hurt the most.  _I should have been there_.

  
_Damn this war_.


End file.
